


Someone to Watch Over Me

by Miss_M



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/M, Police, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Witness Protection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2013-10-11
Packaged: 2017-12-27 13:11:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_M/pseuds/Miss_M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Detective Brienne Tarth has criminals to arrest and the good people of King’s Landing to keep safe. She can’t waste time making sure a turncoat like Jaime Lannister doesn’t get assassinated while giving testimony in the trial of the century. Jaime, of course, has other ideas, and the leverage to have Brienne assigned to his protective detail. Not just any protective detail – the night shift.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cold Feet

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, gentle reader, this is _another_ Cop!Brienne AU. The rating may change as we move along – in fact, I strongly suspect it will. ;-) [The rating on this was initially T, then it went up to M, and finally, well.] I am aiming for a fluffier tone than in most of my fics (certainly my other Cop!Brienne AUs), with just a side dish of darkness and angst. This fic also has a prequel [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1158327).
> 
> The title is from the George Gershwin song, which is oddly well suited to Jaime, though written for a woman singer. Where would J/B be without gender-flipping, after all? I own nothing.

Brienne is not sure she believes in the gods, but she is absolutely certain that somebody higher up than she in the cosmic order of things is having themselves a bloody good laugh at her expense. 

“Me, sir?” she says, cold dread creeping into her tone. The look on Captain Mormont’s face does not suggest the likelihood of a reprieve, but she plows on desperately. “I am not on schedule for tonight. I already had Lannister the night before last, and the night before that.”

Hunt snickers from his perch on the edge of the next desk over. His desk isn’t even in this part of the squad room, but he wandered over when he saw Mormont approach Brienne, with such fake casualness Brienne was instantly suspicious. Well, even more suspicious than she usually is where Hunt is concerned. 

“You turning down the opportunity to _have him_ a third time, Bri?” Hunt chortles. “Might as well get the pipes cleaned, it’s been a while…”

Brienne grits her teeth, clenches her hands into fists. Even her toes clench inside cold, sodden shoes and socks, making a small squishy sound under her desk. Mercifully, Hunt is stupid enough to say something like that to her right in front of the Captain, and Jeor Mormont may be old school, but he tries hard not to act like it. 

“Stow it, Hunt,” Mormont growls, and Hunt instantly sits up straight. “There’ll be no sexually harassing talk on my watch, are we clear? Get back to work.” 

Hunt vanishes back to his own desk, as if by magic. Brienne silently thanks the Captain, even if he did not think to say there would be no harassment on his watch or otherwise. You can’t teach an old bear new tricks overnight, and Mormont does try. 

“Sir, I would really, really appreciate not being Lannister’s babysitter tonight. I soaked up half the river this afternoon, I need a shower, I need a meal…” She is almost whining. She is desperate enough to get home and change her shoes ( _and not have to deal with Jaime Lannister_ ) that she doesn’t much care. 

Mormont is shaking his head in that implacable way of his. Sooner move the Wall than him once his mind is made up. “Not my call, Tarth. Lannister asked for you personally, and as long as he’s District Attorney Sparrow’s star witness in the Lannister-Baelish case, Sparrow and this fair city will give him whatever he wants. And apparently he wants you.” Mormont’s broad face is suddenly suffused by an expression not seen since that unpleasantness with his son years ago: embarrassment. “I don’t mean that like Hunt would mean it, you understand? I just mean Lannister apparently feels safest with you on his protective detail…”

Brienne waves this away, having no desire to watch the Captain squirm. She can smell the stench of the river coming off her wet clothes, knows it is why the few desks still occupied at end of shift emptied so precipitately when she walked in, leaving a trail of brown water behind her on the linoleum. Her feet are starting to feel like they are turning into icy fins inside her socks, and she is all out of energy to argue with the Old Bear. 

She gives it one final shot, playing on Mormont’s dedication to the service and desire to keep his detectives out of the political fray. “Since when do protected witnesses get to call those shots, sir? We’re police officers, not bodyguards. Surely Lannister can’t just pick and choose who stays with him nights…”

“He can if D.A. Sparrow says he can, and you know what a stickler Sparrow is for cleaning up King’s Landing by any means available. It’s what got him elected, after all.” It is cold comfort to Brienne to see that Mormont thinks no more than she does of having his officers at the beck and call of an overprivileged white-collar criminal like Jaime Lannister, who only dodged jail time by selling out his colleagues ( _his family_ ). “Think of it this way, Tarth: you took an oath to protect and serve the general public. Until the end of this trial, so far as you’re concerned, Jaime Lannister _is_ the general public.”

“Yes, sir.” She does not hide her disapproval or her weariness, but she gives in to the inevitable. 

After a bomb was found under Lannister’s car the day before the trial began, D.A. Sparrow ordered he be accompanied by a pair of uniformed police wherever he went, and a detective to spend the night in his apartment, to keep him safe. For her sins and Jaime Lannister’s amusement, Brienne seems to be it. 

Mormont graces her with a sympathetic look. “I’m taking you off the day shift, you can report straight to Lannister’s place tomorrow night. Now go get a shower and change into something dry. Though it would serve him right if you tracked half the city’s refuse into his nice apartment.” 

Brienne returns the Captain’s grin, waits until he is back in his office before she slumps on her desk, her head on her arms, her feet wet and cold and smelly. 

“Tarth!” Mormont’s deep voice booms across the squad room like a cannon shot, and Brienne sits up so suddenly she nearly goes over backwards, chair and all. 

“Sir?”

“Good job catching that pedophile. Did he really try to get away from you by swimming across the Rush?” 

“Nearly drowned would be more like it. I pulled him out. And thank you, sir.” She would never have let him drown, but she rather relishes the idea of the reception Ramsay Snow is likely getting down in central lockup. Normally Brienne would not indulge such petty thoughts, but she is wet and her back hurts from wrestling Snow into submission, knee-deep in the torrent of liquid sewage normally known as the Blackwater Rush. 

She has to walk past Hunt’s desk on her way out of the squad room. Apparently he decides she looks annoyed enough to cross the line and punch him, so he says nothing. A rare moment of wisdom from the man. Brienne mentally slaps herself for the umpteenth time for ever agreeing to date him. True, she was new to the precinct and naïve enough to think detective status would earn her colleagues’ respect, but she still should have seen it coming. They only went on as many dates as Hunt needed to get her naked, followed by the kiss-off ( _“Brienne, honey, this is not dating,” Hunt leered at her the morning after, “this is what we call a one night stand”_ ), then came the taunts, the jeers, the suggestive comments. 

Hunt and his posse are assholes. But Brienne knows she shares the blame. If she had given herself a reality check before it was too late, they would still talk trash about her, but it would slide off, there would be no chinks in her armor where their hooks could catch, sink in, tear her flesh. 

She squelches down the corridor toward the locker room and the showers, praying she has something relatively clean to change into in her locker, when Podrick’s voice hails her from the break room. 

She sticks her head in, hoping whatever Pod wants won’t take long. He is in there with Bronn, drinking coffee and eating Pop-Tarts. Brienne’s stomach growls at the smell, but she doesn’t venture closer, not wanting to spoil her colleagues’ appetite with the river miasma she carries around with her like so much baggage. 

Though he made detective two years ago, Pod still looks underage, and gets picked for a lot of sting operations posing as a rent boy or druggie. “Hey, I heard you caught Ramsay Snow,” he tells Brienne. “Did you really have to fish him out of Blackwater Bay?”

“Just the Rush. The Bay would have been cleaner.” 

Pod sniffs experimentally, wrinkles his nose. “Right on.”

News footage of the trial of Cersei Lannister and Petyr Baelish plays on the small TV. Brienne can’t help staring at the screen: Baelish with his goatee and a look on his face that is oddly reminiscent of Ramsay Snow’s twisted smirk; Cersei Lannister, all golden curls and haughty beauty, as though she were untouchable even at her trial; District Attorney Sparrow wielding his briefcase like the scourge of the gods; Jaime Lannister with his sleek suit and his sleek confidence. And his face. It ought to be illegal for a man to be that good-looking. 

As though he read her thoughts, Bronn speaks up. “So which one is this star witness that’s got Sparrow creaming in his smallclothes?” 

Pod looks at his partner exasperatedly. “Don’t you _ever_ watch the news?”

Bronn gestures at the TV. “The fuck does it look like I’m doing?”

“It’s that one,” Brienne gestures vaguely when Jaime Lannister is shown amongst several other men in sleek suits, his lawyers. 

“Which one?” Bronn asks.

Brienne sighs. “The one that looks like the poster child for the master race by way of _GQ_.”

Bronn whistles. “Seven hells! No wonder he didn’t want to go to jail, face like his. If I was banged up inside, I’d be first in line to get me a piece of that.”

“Bronn!” The two years Brienne and Pod were partners left them with a solid friendship and the ability to exclaim in outrage simultaneously. And Bronn, whom Brienne suspects was born seedy and only got seedier during long years on the Vice Squad, leaves outrage in his wake the way old boats leave oil slicks. 

Bronn is unrepentant, a small smirk hovering in the corner of his mouth. “What? I’m just saying what you’re both thinking.”

Brienne blushes, though nowhere near as warmly as Pod, who looks like he would be grateful if his chair swallowed him up. 

“I’m on Lannister’s protective detail tonight,” she blurts out, and why in seventy-seven bouncing hells did she just say _that_? 

Pod and Bronn look at her with sympathy and critical appraisal, respectively. 

“I thought Hyle was scheduled for that tonight,” Pod volunteers. Brienne mentally slaps Hunt twice: once for being an ass to her in front of Mormont, and once for coming over to gloat after he got off the hook because Lannister requested her instead. 

_Why_ Lannister requested her, she has no idea. The two nights she spent guarding him were tense and awkward until he retired to his palatial bedroom, and Brienne was left alone with his couch and her dire thoughts. 

Two nights were enough for Brienne to decide she does not like Jaime Lannister. His sense of humor put her back up, mostly because she could not always tell when he was joking, and he would sometimes make vaguely suggestive comments which she knew better than to take seriously or respond to. His taste in home furnishings made her feel like a bull in a very expensive china shop. Every time she went to pour herself a glass of water, she was certain she would knock over and break something that cost more than her monthly salary. And that’s not even going into how she feels almost offended by his casual self-confidence, the immense ease with which he inhabits his skin. 

Even with his injury, a man who looks like Jaime Lannister has never had to work hard for anything, Brienne thinks darkly, and he has never done anyone but himself any good. Exhibit A: he sold his own sister down the river to save himself. He may be the general public she swore to protect, as Mormont said, but if Brienne is going to be saddled with making sure Jaime Lannister lives until the end of the trial, that does not mean she has to take any of his crap. 

“You’re not going like that, are you?” Bronn asks her. “You stink like a sewer.”

Brienne scowls at him. “I _was_ on my way to take a shower when you two lassoed me in here. And what do you mean, going like that? I’m not going on a date with the man, I’m supposed to make sure nobody sneaks in and kills him during the night.” 

Pod and Bronn are staring at her in the wake of this outburst with varying degrees of, respectively, bemused and wry assessment. If she keeps this up, the idea that she might while away the time protecting Jaime Lannister by fucking him is going to start sounding a lot more plausible. 

Bronn’s unerring sense for other people’s soft underbellies is pinging like mad, Brienne thinks when he grins at her. “It must really be something,” he says, “all alone, all night, with a man looks like that, couldn’t fight you off if he wanted to, what with only having one arm.” 

“Hand,” Brienne corrects him automatically. “They had to amputate his hand after the incident, he still has the arm. And trust me, neither I nor Jaime Lannister would exchange anything more than a handshake with each other.” _And thank you so much for making me sound like a rapist. Fight me off, indeed!_ she thinks but keeps the thought to herself. No sense in feeding the animals.

“You’re the expert,” Bronn says. His tone is deliberately ambiguous on just what ( _or whom)_ she is supposedly the expert. 

“Do you want me to text you once you’re there?” Pod asks. They often used to text each other while separated during stakeouts. It started as a way for Brienne to make Podrick more comfortable working alone, but the habit stuck. 

She smiles at her former partner with genuine affection. “Thanks, but it’s not necessary, Pod. Babysitting witnesses is always the same. You go, you’re bored out of your mind, you doze on a lumpy couch, you hand them over to the day shift detail, end of. I’ll be fine.”

She nods to the two men and finally heads for the showers, rejoicing in anticipation of warm, clean water washing the stench of the Blackwater Rush out of her hair, off her skin. Resolutely not thinking about Jaime Lannister, or how his couch is the opposite of lumpy and possibly the only thing about his apartment Brienne enjoys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know your first impressions! Next chapter: Jaime! :-)


	2. Blue Eyes

Brienne’s mood improves only marginally by the time she gets to Jaime Lannister’s overpriced downtown apartment. Her skin feels raw after the scalding shower, and the cheap generic shampoo from the wall dispenser just about manages to cover up the residual river pong in her hair. Her dinner was an energy bar, and the only clothes she had in her locker were ancient sneakers, sweatpants and a T-shirt she was going to wear to the gym tomorrow. Dressed like that, she does not feel much like a person in a position of authority. Certainly not like someone with the right to apply lethal force, who swore to protect and serve. She feels like someone whose black bra is visible under her white T-shirt. 

The two uniformed police officers in front of Lannister’s door greet her politely. Brienne is grateful Sam Tarly and Jon Snow are there tonight, as they are among the few cops at her precinct who can be trusted not to pass comment on her outfit. 

“Isn’t Hunt supposed to be here tonight?” Sam asks with good-natured curiosity. 

Brienne knows the truth will be all over the precinct by morning, if it isn’t already, decides to delay the inevitable comments on Lannister demanding she watch over him nights by a few more hours. 

“Our schedules got switched around last minute,” she says neutrally. Sam gives her a sympathetic nod. 

“That’s not right,” Jon mutters, frowning. “You worked a full shift, and then they put you on this as well? After you caught that bastard this afternoon.” 

“What bastard?” Sam asks. 

“Ramsay Snow,” Jon says with so much distaste Brienne wonders if they might not be distantly related. They kind of look alike, with their dark hair and sharp features. 

“The child molester?” Sam’s eyes go so wide, you wouldn’t think he has several years of wading through the muck which is a police officer’s daily routine under his belt. He looks up at Brienne with admiration. “High five!”

It may not be the politically correct response to the arrest of a walking horror like Ramsay Snow, but Brienne gets it, smiles, high-fives Sam, thinks better of offering a high five to Jon as well. Wishes them a quiet night before she rings the doorbell and braces herself for the evening ahead of her. 

He really has no right. No right to open the door, his feet bare, hair still slightly damp from a shower, his white shirt clinging to the moisture on his skin, and smile at her like he had ordered her brought to his door special delivery. Like they share a secret. 

Not when she tops him by a couple of inches, freckled, ugly and awkward. Dressed in gym clothes with her gun on her hip. Wishing she were at home, at work, on the bottom of Blackwater Bay – anywhere but on his doorstep. 

“Detective Tarth,” Jaime Lannister drawls with what seems like genuine pleasure. 

Brienne scowls at him, ready and willing to keep the expression in place for the next several hours. Does he _have_ to say her name and title like that, like they are a piece of chocolate in his mouth? Like they amuse him. “How lovely to see you again,” he adds unnecessarily as he moves aside to let her in. 

Brienne stomps into his living room with its Italian furniture and original artwork. Crimson curtains are wide open, allowing a glorious view of the sun setting over the high-rises of downtown King’s Landing. The window covers most of one wall, and Brienne can see the people in the buildings opposite through their own oversized windows, as clearly as though they were tiny dolls in the palm of her hand. 

With an exasperated sigh, Brienne moves quickly to close the curtains, plunging the room into red-tinted gloom. Behind her, she hears Jaime Lannister exchanging pleasantries with Sam and Jon (well, Sam more than Jon) before he wishes them a good evening and closes the door. 

Brienne passes into the adjoining bedroom, scanning the marble-and-chrome kitchen on the way for anything amiss. At least the matching crimson curtains in the bedroom are closed. The red shadows they cast give the room, with its huge bed, the look of a high-end porn set. 

_Salacious and unsubtle and Jaime Lannister all over_ , Brienne thinks as she returns to the living room. 

He is waiting for her in the middle of the living room, massaging the stump at the end of his right arm with his remaining hand. Brienne has never seen him without his prosthetic hand before, cannot help staring at the scar tissue for a moment. She knows the story from Jaime’s file: how Tywin Lannister got into bed with Qohorik organized crime, then after he was murdered they collected what he owed them by nearly chopping off his son’s hand. What the mobsters started, surgeons finished. 

Brienne’s heart goes out to the maimed man. It was a monstrously cruel and unnecessary thing to do. The Lannisters had money, the deed was done for pure spite. Because they _could_ do it. 

She looks up and sees Jaime Lannister watching her with a wariness she has never seen on his face before. Brienne realizes this is _his_ soft underbelly, and she could not do worse than to give voice to her pity. Not that she would. She does not need Jaime Lannister finding any chinks in her armor, either. 

She schools her features into an expression of stern professionalism. “Mr. Lannister, you really must remember to keep the curtains closed and stay away from the windows. Especially at night. There could be snipers. The buildings opposite are within range of a rocket launcher…”

He waves his hand as though she were an overprotective parent fretting over a scratch. “And grumpkins and snarks under the bed, waiting to eat me up once the lights are out, I know.” He grins. “That’s what I have you for, Brienne, to keep me safe in the dark.” 

Brienne is grateful the room is in red-tinted semidarkness, so he may not notice her blush. Then she realizes being in the dark with this man and his comments is not the most felicitous situation, decides to sacrifice her pride, marches over to a standing lamp and switches it on. Jaime Lannister’s grin merely widens when he sees the warm pink suffusing her neck and face. Her ears are on fire. 

“It’s Detective Tarth to you, Mr. Lannister,” she says grimly. “You may not take your own safety seriously, but I have no choice but to do so. I would appreciate it if you would let me do my job, and do as I say.”

She slumps on the ( _very comfortable_ ) couch, stares straight ahead. She will _not_ let him get a rise out of her. 

She is not surprised when he persists. “I can take direction very well, given the right incentive,” Jaime says merrily, with just a hint of innuendo. “As for you doing your job, you seem comfortable enough around me to come here straight from the gym.” He rakes his eyes over her. “No complaints, mind. I like seeing you so _relaxed_.” 

Brienne unbuckles her gun belt, rests it on the coffee table pointedly, then sits back and crosses her arms over her chest to cover up the smudge of dark bra under the thin white cotton. Jaime chortles and joins her on the couch. Not right next to her, though. He clearly knows better, for all his needling. 

They sit in silence, she as stiff as a board on her end of the couch, he completely at ease, sprawled out over his half. His right knee is inches away from Brienne’s left leg, the old denim covering it looking as soft as skin in the buttery light cast by the lamp. 

Brienne keeps mulishly silent, her eyes trained on her gun on the coffee table. She can play the quiet game better than anyone, while Jaime Lannister couldn’t keep quiet to save his life. 

It seems like mere moments before he shifts, sighs. “Not that I don’t find you better company than that oaf they sent last night, but are you going to be a miserable, silent cow all night? Talk to me, Brienne, we’ve a lot of time to kill.”

She thinks about not answering, realizes he will just keep talking if she doesn’t. “I am here to prevent you being killed before you can testify against your sister,” she grinds out between her teeth, every word sharp and clear as a piece of broken glass. “Not to help you kill time or to entertain you. And it’s Detective Tarth.” 

“Been a long day, has it?” he asks with mock cheer, an edge of irritation creeping in. “You spend your shift cleaning the streets of scum, only there wasn’t enough scum, so now you don’t know what to do with all that excess self-righteousness? I’m beginning to wonder why I requested you.”

“Well that’s one thing we have in common.” The words are out of Brienne’s mouth before she can stop them, followed closely by others crowding to tumble out. “You have no right to demand city officials be assigned to you like we are hired help. Any one of my colleagues could do this as well as me. The only reason you requested me is because it amuses you to mock me. And for your information, I spent my shift arresting a man who raped two six-year-olds, and wading into the Blackwater Rush in order to do so. So there.” As parting salvoes go, this one leaves something to be desired, but quick-draw quips were never Brienne’s forte. 

“If I wanted amusement, I’d take Smiley Sam and Glum Jon to the circus,” Jaime Lannister fires back. “Maybe I don’t like the idea of strangers staying in my apartment overnight, did that ever occur to you? Maybe I feel better having you rest your dour head on this couch than someone who filches my booze and thinks juggling oranges very badly is the height of hilarity, like that idiot Dontos they sent last night.”

Brienne gapes at him. She cannot believe anything could make this man uncomfortable. She very carefully does not look at his stump, and would bet a month’s salary he had no issues with overnight guests when he had both hands. 

“Strangers,” she says dully. “ _We_ are strangers. There’s no reason in the world why you should trust me more than any other police officer.” 

Jaime smiles at her, a smile that seems so sincere it slides right down Brienne’s spine and on down to her toes. “And yet I do. _So there_.” 

They sit in silence once again, but the silence is of a different texture. It is richer somehow, not so chaffing. Brienne is not sure she likes it. She is not sure she wants to feel comfortable around Jaime Lannister. 

“Six-year-olds, huh?” he asks quietly. 

Brienne flinches at the memory of their parents’ tear-stained faces, the reports the hospital sent over after the initial examinations. She nods, chewing her lip, not trusting herself to speak. 

“I hope you dealt him a right good slap. Or five.” 

“No, but he did swallow so much river water he’ll probably contract some horrible bowel disease and die of diarrhea. Unless the other prisoners beat him to death first. Child molesters don’t have a very high life expectancy in prison.” 

Jaime chuckles at that, as though her remark were the height of wit. Brienne finds herself smiling in response before she steps firmly on the traitorous urge. 

Suddenly Jaime is a lot nearer than he was a second ago, his face close enough that Brienne can feel him draw breath against her cheek. 

“Ah yes,” he murmurs, his words stirring the hairs by her ear, sending a shiver through Brienne. “I detect a distinct whiff of _eau de Blackwater Rush_ under that horrid shampoo of yours.” 

“Piss off.” 

Without her conscious approval, her hand is on his chest, pushing him back gently, her palm tingling with the feel of muscles shifting under skin and shirt, the faint tactile echo of his heartbeat like a distant thunder under her fingers. 

He falls back onto his end of the couch and grins at her easily, like they are friends. Like any kind of physical contact other than a handshake is not highly inappropriate, given the circumstances. 

“Drinks!” Jaime announces, while Brienne is still busy blushing. “You deserve a drink after the arrest you made. What’s your poison? I’ve got _everything_.”

 _There are so many ways I could interpret those last two sentences_ , Brienne thinks, as she is no doubt meant to. Shakes her head to clear it. “I don’t like wine. Or beer. And I’m on duty.”

He makes faces at her so she has to look away lest she burst out laughing. “One drink,” he insists. “If you don’t have one, I’ll just have to drink alone, and I hate drinking alone. Come on, Brienne, pardon, _Detective Tarth_. I’ll make you something sweet and fruity and blue, like your eyes.” 

“My eyes are not fruity. Or sweet,” Brienne mutters balefully, but he is already in the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards and rattling the ice tray. She wonders how he can manage to mix cocktails with one hand, decides it is better not to ask, lest he inform her what else he might be able to do with just one hand. 

She sits pondering her gun on the coffee table and the conundrum of how within half an hour she went from wanting to be anywhere but here to feeling mildly fine sitting on Jaime Lannister’s couch. Too quickly for her to reach any definitive conclusions on the matter, he is back bearing two tall glasses on a tray balanced on his stump.

Brienne stares at the bright blue liquid in her glass, condensation running over her fingers, dripping onto the leg of her sweatpants. 

“Um,” she says intelligently. 

“Not quite the shade of your eyes, but we’ll make do,” Jaime says as he settles on his end of the couch with his blue drink. “It’s a Blue Lagoon.” 

No flicker of recognition from Brienne. 

“You don’t get out much, do you?” he laughs. 

“No, Mr. Lannister, I work for a living.” She is quite proud of that comeback. 

“Ooh,” Jaime exclaims delightedly. “Was that a burn? Did you just attempt to burn me?” 

Brienne glares at him with only half the strength she would normally put behind one of her glares, takes a big mouthful of her drink. Finds it to be as sweet and fruity as promised, and quite strong, tells herself to sip the rest. 

“Anyway,” Jaime continues, blissfully ignoring her glare, “if you are going to be so formal, you should at least address me by my proper title.” 

He waits until she sighs and asks: “Which is…?”

“Doctor Lannister.” 

Brienne looks incredulous, her glass tilting dangerously in her hand. 

“You wound me deeply, Brienne. I have a Ph.D. in economics, I’ll have you know.”

“ _Really?_ ”

Jaime eyes her like he is considering throwing his drink in her face. Or tickling her until she spills hers. “So that’s how it is?” He puts his drink down next to her gun, without a coaster, Brienne can’t help noticing. “Fine. If you want proof, proof you shall have.” 

He fetches a framed diploma from the bookshelf, where it lay face down under some dusty folders. Brienne takes it gingerly, inspects the name of the school, the iron hoes and gold coins sigil. 

“The Braavos School of Business is a good school,” she says quietly. 

“They will be relieved to hear they have your seal of approval, I’m sure,” Jaime snarks. 

She proffers the diploma, and he puts it back as it was. 

“I stand corrected,” Brienne says when he rejoins her on the couch, wondering at his decision not to display the diploma proudly. “It is a very impressive achievement.” 

“ _It_ is impressive or _you_ are impressed by it?” he quips, lightning-quick, and why does he care what she thinks? 

_And yet I do. Trust you._

Brienne watches his profile as he resolutely faces straight ahead, not meeting her eye, is amused to remember her own determination to ignore him when the evening began. “I am impressed,” she concedes. 

He does look at her then, his eyes softening, his smile of that deliciously shivery variety Brienne is starting to become accustomed to. “Not just a pretty face,” he says, and she rolls her eyes and sips her drink. 

Brienne’s head is buzzing faintly by the time they are both ready to settle down for the night, though she does not admit what a lightweight she is, feeling no desire to go back to having him mock her. 

“If that couch becomes too small and cramped for you, you can always join me,” Jaime calls from his dark bedroom. 

Brienne does not reply as she makes herself comfortable on the only couch in the world long enough for her feet not to hang over the armrest. 

“There’s plenty more room on the bed,” Jaime persists, snickering at his own wittiness. 

Brienne wonders briefly if the drink went to his head even more than it did hers as she watches the way lamplight and shadows curve over the ceiling, the faint sounds of the city rumbling far below. She will only rest her head a little, has to stay awake and alert until morning. Without a pillow or duvet, and with her hands going numb under her head, she trusts she will not doze off.

Just then, her phone pings with a new text message where it rests next to her gun, within easy reach from the couch. 

_Bronn wants to know how things are going with Mr._ GQ _. Pod_

Brienne is torn between laughter and annoyance. 

“Who’s texting you?” Jaime asks from the bedroom. 

“Work,” Brienne replies, the _mind your own beeswax_ plain in her tone. She thumbs a reply: 

_BRONN wants to know?!? I’ll hunt you both down for food_

Pod’s reply is a mere second in coming.

_:-)_

“No it isn’t. It’s your secret lover checking up on you. He saw me on TV and needs to make sure you’re not dancing the sweaty mambo with me, isn’t he?” Jaime teases. 

Brienne smiles almost in spite of herself, texts Pod back: _He’s annoying as all seven hells, but he’ll live to see another day._

“Go to sleep, Doctor Lannister,” she calls out, some of that suppressed smile spilling over into her voice. 

There is a moment of silence, which Brienne’s joy in knowing she caught Jaime Lannister off his guard makes seem much longer than it is. His voice when he replies sounds subtly different than Brienne has ever heard before. Relaxed. Content. Happy. 

“Good night, Detective Tarth.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Certain lines shamelessly pilfered and adapted from book!canon and show!canon – as if you couldn’t tell. :-) Temperatures are expected to rise in coming chapters.


	3. Warm Hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rating goes up from T to M this chapter. Enjoy! ;-)

When Brienne gets to Jaime Lannister’s apartment, strain and anger are evident in the lines which are not usually there around his eyes and mouth. A nearly empty bottle of wine sits on the kitchen counter, no glass in sight. At least the crimson curtains are closed against the gathering dusk. Jaime barely acknowledges her greeting, sits on the couch, staring morosely at the floor, his hand and feet twitching as though he would rather be pacing. Or punching someone. 

Brienne hesitates for only a second before she heads into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator, pulls out ham, cheese, lettuce, mustard. It has been three days since the evening he made her a cocktail and teased her about Podrick’s texts, and the subsequent nights went by much the same, minus the alcohol consumption, which Brienne managed to prevent. 

She has had a good day’s sleep, is wearing a suit rather than gym clothes and feeling much the better for it, is ready for whatever this storm is about. She makes a large sandwich, cuts off the crusts, disposes of the wine dregs and the bottle. 

Jaime does not move when she puts the sandwich on the coffee table directly in his line of sight, and stands back, wondering what, if anything, else she should do. Her late father always trusted the power of food to improve her moods and get her to open up about her troubles when she was younger.

Jaime’s eyes take their time climbing up her long legs, her torso, to her face. Sharp, cold eyes, as though he were scaling an icy cliff, driving spikes into her flesh to pull himself up. 

“A sandwich, Brienne?” he asks, smooth, dangerous. “Are you my nursemaid now? And here I thought you were only supposed to keep me alive, not take care of my bodily needs. Perhaps you’d like to suck my cock as well, while you’re at it.”

Brienne squeezes her eyes shut, bites her lip to stop air escaping her in a rush, almost a sob. Her father never had to deal with Jaime Lannister’s moods. 

When she opens her eyes and looks at him, everything she feels is distilled into righteous anger. She towers over him where he sits on the couch, glaring up at her, his knees spread in an angry invitation, a challenge. She feels not the slightest bit intimidated by this man. 

“Don’t be nasty,” she says, a treble of anger and hurt in her voice. “I’m sorry if you had a rough day in court, but don’t you take it out on me.” 

“A rough day,” he barks, his laughter a jagged thing, splintered and lacerating. “ _A rough day?_ Do you have any idea what I did today while you were snug in bed with your secret texting boyfriend snoring beside you?”

“I don’t have a…” she begins, irrelevantly, but he cuts her off.

“I told the ladies and gentlemen of the jury how my sister hit upon the idea of embezzling money invested by thousands of people, so we could cover up our dear father’s losses. _His debts of honor_ , he used to call them. As if he’d have known honor if it came up and put a garland of roses on his head!”

“Jaime.” Brienne knows better than to think that this Jaime is the only real one, more real than the one who made her a silly blue drink, made her smile, _said he trusted her_ , but she doesn’t know what to say to this Jaime. She barely knew what to say to the other one, and this one… This one fills her with dread and foreboding, like a crime scene before she actually sees it. 

He is still talking, words pouring out of him in a near-hysterical rush. “And then, to top it all off, I told the jury how Cersei and that fucker Baelish possibly had Father killed so she could take over the company.” He brings both arms up to run his hands over his face, seems to realize he only has one hand. Chortles with mirthless laughter, buries his face in his hand and stump. 

“At least I would have told them all about it, but the judge ended proceedings for the day,” he mumbles into his hand. “So tomorrow I get to go back and finish the story of how Cersei _possibly_ had Father killed, and then his Qohorik goons _possibly_ cut off my hand in lieu of outstanding debts. Of honor, of course.” 

Brienne is frozen to the spot. She wants to go to him, to offer comfort, but she cannot seem to move. _He sold his own sister down the river to save himself_ , her resentful thoughts come back to her, jeering. 

Jaime is wiping his eyes and mouth with his hand. The skin on his face looks thinner somehow, the veins in his temples blue rivers. “I used to love her,” he mutters, more to himself than to Brienne, it seems. “ _Really_ love her. I did everything for her, cheated all those people, and she didn’t even tell me she would try to oust Father from the company. Or what she was planning after he thwarted her.” The smirk that twists his lips is painful to see. “She wouldn’t even touch me, after…” 

He waves his stump eloquently, and Brienne feels the urgent need to gargle mouthwash. Or bleach. The realization just how inbred the Lannisters were, as a business and as a family, clings to her skin like an oil spill. 

Jaime looks up, sees the expression on her face. She has no idea what it is, but it must be quite something judging from how quickly his own expression hardens, rock forming over molten lava. 

“Well now, my sweet. What do you say to that?” His voice is a susurrus, a stroke of raw silk down Brienne’s goose-pimpled flesh. It makes her want to scrub her arms and legs with sand, to get rid of the sensation. “Are you shocked, Brienne? What will you do now? Open those curtains and let the snipers and rocket launchers have at me, maybe? Few would blame you if you did. Turncoat, they call me in the _King’s Landing Post_. Betrayer of his kith and kin.”

He picks up the sandwich and flings it, plate and all, against the far wall, past Brienne’s head. He does not aim to hit her, but she flinches at the sound of shattering crockery just the same. 

Someone knocks on the door with great authority. 

Brienne turns as though impelled by a clockwork mechanism, walks stiffly to the door, answers. 

“Everything all right?” Jon Snow asks, his hand on his gun, Sam hovering anxiously behind him. Jon peers past her to where Lannister sits on the couch. 

“Everything is fine,” Brienne replies, her voice sounding strange in her ears. Strangled. She dislikes lying, even under such circumstances. “I dropped a plate.” 

Jon gives her a look which clearly says he knows the difference between a plate being dropped and a plate being thrown, but he doesn’t insist. Nods once, tersely, and steers Sam back to their post in the corridor as Brienne closes the door. 

She lingers a moment, her forehead almost touching the cold wooden surface, then she turns and marches up to the couch. Sits on her end of it, gives Jaime a glare that would cut through reinforced concrete. Keeps glaring until he looks up from contemplating his hand, his eyes moist and red and wavering, looking at her, then away, then back at her, the fight gone out of him. 

“You are doing the right thing,” she enunciates. 

He snorts, grimaces, opens his mouth to respond. Brienne’s finger is instantly two inches away from his nose, pointing like a sword. 

“Shut. Your. Mouth,” she raps out. “You’ve said your piece, now it’s my turn.” She waits the space of a breath to see if he obeys. He does, so she continues. “You are doing the right thing. The necessary thing. You may have been… _close_ to your sister once, but she has done so much damage. She damaged you. She damaged others. Your father’s death, everything… Maybe you deserve to go to jail too, I don’t know. But you are making the best choice you can. So stop licking your wounds and man up, Lannister.” 

He does laugh then, a mirthless, incredulous exhalation. Holds up his stump. “I’m a bit lacking for a full complement of manhood.”

Brienne shakes her head stubbornly. “You’re still more of a man than anyone else I know.”

The words come to her so easily, roll off her tongue so smoothly, she barely realizes what she said until it’s done, and she suddenly cannot bear the weight of Jaime’s gaze, how it focuses on her with the force of a burning sun. Brienne faces forward, her limbs resting on the couch like sticks, like stones. Her skin feels hot as a furnace, numb as snow. 

She sees Jaime move out of the corner of her eye, closes her eyes. Feels him slide closer across the expanse of the couch, feels it dip when he is sitting beside her, his breath on her cheek. 

“Brienne.” Her name warm and soft in his mouth, a prayer, a sweetness. 

She turns her head away slightly, wishes she knew how to fly so she could jump out of the window. His teeth catch her earlobe, tug gently. The tip of his tongue touches the dip of tender skin just under her ear. Her breath escapes her, and she feels his hand cover hers, where it is gripping her knee convulsively. His hand on hers, warm and so _real_ , as he kisses her under the ear, kisses her jaw, her cheek. Tender kisses now, just lips with the merest hint of teeth behind them.

“Brienne,” he says again, warmer now, more fervent. She clenches her hands into fists on her knees, but his fingers intertwine with hers, gripping, holding. Her hands feel like they will spontaneously combust, she cannot breathe, a weight pressing down on her breastbone. She can feel his stump resting on her hip, can almost imagine phantom fingers stroking her there, lifting up the edge of her jacket and shirt to touch skin. “Brienne.”

“You’re drunk,” she grits out, half a sob and half a plea. “And you’re sad, and angry. And you want Cersei.”

“Want you,” he murmurs before he kisses the corner of her lips, and she gasps. Nobody has ever said that to her before. Not Hunt, not any other man. She gasps, and he kisses her, tongue flicking past her lips, touching her teeth and tongue and parting and coming back, a simple yet intricate dance. 

Brienne’s arms and legs clench, ready to send her shooting to her feet, breaking the embrace like a chain. Her mouth opens more under his, she moans. When he brings his hand up to cradle her face, she leans into it, brushes her cheek on his palm, branding it with her burning freckles, and kisses him, kisses him. She can feel her heart beating rhythmically in her chest, her stomach, between her legs. She cannot breathe, doesn’t need to. 

She is clutching his shirt, and Jaime’s hand slips down her neck, her shoulder, her arm, cups her breast through her clothes. Brienne gasps while he pulls her closer with his maimed arm, sucks on her lower lip, nipping, demanding. Her hand is splayed on his ribs, she can feel his heart fluttering like a caged bird somewhere deep inside. She feels his stump brush the gun holster on her hip, feels his arousal pressing into her side. He grinds into her as they kiss. 

She pulls away, her lip slipping out between his teeth reluctantly, but his hand is there, back on her cheek before she can rise and step away from the couch. 

“Say you don’t want to,” Jaime rasps, his breath short, his lips moist and kiss-swollen. He cups the back of her neck with his hand, squeezes gently. “I’m a little drunk, and a little angry, and I want you a lot. I’ll stop if you can tell me you don’t want to.”

“I…” She has to pause, lick her lips, sees him looking hungrily. Feels him pressed all along her side, wanting her. “I want to. But I can’t.” 

For a long moment, she is certain he will kiss her regardless, chew her up and crush her. His fingers tighten as they cradle her skull, the back of her neck, and he drops his head to her shoulder, kisses her neck quickly, scorchingly, more teeth than lips. Then he is sitting back, placing a good three feet between them, and her skin feels flayed at every point where they are no longer touching. Brienne remembers Bronn telling her Jaime couldn’t fight her off even if he wanted to, and her heart beats painfully, jackhammering against her breastbone. 

Their breathing is the only sound in the room, heavy and labored. _As though we just finished_ , Brienne thinks, and wants to cackle, cry, scream. 

She gets up quickly, walks to where the remains of the plate and the sandwich litter the floor. Starts picking it all up, the plate shards resting sharp in her bare hands. 

“Leave it,” Jaime says from the couch, sounding tired, ancient. 

She tries to wipe mustard off the floorboards with a piece of bread. 

“I said leave it!” 

He is on his feet, his hand clenched into a fist. Brienne stares up at him from where she crouches on the floor. 

Jaime makes his fingers relax, runs them through his hair. “Just leave it,” he says, his voice tight and weary as old rope. “You are not the help, you are not my cook or my nurse. You are a police officer, keeping me safe, doing your duty. So do your duty.” 

He turns and goes into his bedroom, slams the door behind him. A moment later, the sound of the shower fills the apartment like muffled rain. 

Brienne slumps against the wall, almost sitting in the remains of the sandwich, her lap full of broken crockery. She wonders if he is running cold water to chase away his anger and arousal, or warm water, hot, scalding, thrusting into his fist and thinking about her, on the couch, her legs around his waist, her hands caressing his face, his chest, his arms, her loss of control complete, her pleasure intense. 

She covers her face with her mustard-smeared hands, and wishes her eyes did not feel as gritty as desert sand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be clear, I jettisoned Tyrion and the kids in the interests of keeping this more fluffy than not… although this chapter is a bit angsty on purpose. :-) Take heart, gentle reader, things will continue to heat up, I promise.


	4. Soft Skin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaand the rating goes up to E. :-)

Jaime spends the night sulking in his bedroom, while Brienne tries to make as little noise as possible moving around in the sitting room and kitchen. There are a thousand moments during that interminable night when she wants to knock on the bedroom door and apologize, climb into bed with him and let her good sense and inhibitions go, even if he just wants to fuck for anger or brief comfort. Another thousand moments when she wants to barge in without knocking and tell him to stop being a prick, what did he expect, there are rules about detective-witness interactions, it’s bad enough ( _she kissed him back_ ) he requested her to guard him in his apartment every night without any additional whiff of impropriety dogging her career once the trial ends, and he goes wherever in seven hells he plans to go afterward. 

As she is getting ready to return to Jaime’s apartment the following night, Brienne tries hard not to think that something has got to give. Either that, or it all goes to the seventh hell. 

She greets Jon and Sam, feigning good cheer even though she is dreading the evening ahead with a very different kind of dread than when she suspected every word out of Jaime’s mouth was a cruel jest at her expense. 

She rings the doorbell, but Jaime does not answer. 

She rings it again. Nothing.

“He didn’t go out, did he?” she asks Sam and Jon. 

Sam looks confused, Jon suspicious. All three pull out their guns and form up in front of the door, their training kicking in. As the senior officer, Brienne takes point, tries the handle, finds the door unlocked. 

Through the door, gun raised, she registers the living room is brighter than it should be, devoid of reddish shadows. The crimson curtains are wide open, Jaime Lannister outlined against the awakening lights of the city in stark silhouette. He half turns, looks at Brienne, Jon and Sam with a smirk, holds up a scotch glass, ice cubes clinking. 

“Evening, all,” he says. He does not sound tipsy. Brienne’s hand itches to smack him regardless. “Care for a drink? Oh right, you’re on duty, aren’t you? Can’t have you drinking while you’re on the clock, can we? It would be _inappropriate_.” 

He is looking at Brienne as he says this, his smile cruel, his eyes glittering like the first stars in the purple sky. 

“Get away from the window,” she says, lowering her gun, moving toward him briskly. She is ready and willing to grab him in an armlock and frogmarch him away from the window if he gives her any more guff. 

Jaime turns to face her, his back to the evening city, and takes a deliberately long sip from his glass. His throat works as he swallows. Brienne could punch him, right there, in his Adam’s apple, he’d fold into her arms like a wheezing rag doll. She can feel Jon and Sam’s eyes on her back, holsters her gun. 

She is nearly level with Jaime when she sees it: a filament of bright red, like a thread of fire, spanning the abyss between his high-rise and the one across the street and to the left, exiting a window there and entering Jaime’s window. Vanishing at a point on Jaime’s back, level with his heart. 

Brienne moves faster than she ever thought possible, faster than she can shout the word _sniper_ for Jon and Sam’s benefit, faster than she would be able to draw her useless weapon. She registers the widening of Jaime’s eyes, his mouth forming an O as she rushes him, then her arms are around his torso, and she is knocking him sideways. Even as they fall, she rolls on top of him, her superior height and weight keeping him trapped between her body and the floor below the window. She feels the breath go out of him when he hits the floor with her on top, his arms scrabbling at her back as she covers him, the cold wet of scotch and melted ice on her thigh, a parody of lovemaking. 

She takes a breath, turns her head to see Sam and Jon grab some floor on either side of the front door, feels Jaime’s pained breath on her neck, then a faint crack sounds somewhere over her head. She does not even have time to wonder in what tiny part of a second she got Jaime out of the way of the bullet before the window collapses on top of them.

Brienne never understood why they call it a shower of broken glass. It feels more like a minor avalanche, tiny shards battering her hard enough to bruise, their edges like a tidal wave of rats’ claws running over her. 

Brienne folds her head and arms over Jaime’s head, her breath stuttering, her mouth full of his hair as she feels pain lance across the back of her neck, down her arms, sharp like particularly bad paper cuts. Jaime struggles under her, as though he is trying to turn her over, protect her with his body as she protects him. He cannot move her, of course, but struggles regardless. 

“Stop that,” she snaps at him, gets a wordless grunt and a mouthful of soft hair in response. The tinkle of all the glass from that huge window falling on windowsill, floor, flesh is deafening. After it passes, silence descends like a shroud, even the noises of the busy city street muffled. 

Brienne lifts her head, glass pouring off her with every gesture, out of her hair, the seams of her clothes. Sees Jon call for backup on his radio, Sam scan the building opposite from his position on the floor, his gun raised and at the ready, useless against a sniper. 

She looks down, sees Jaime purple-faced with lack of breath and the futile effort of trying to move her, sees a drop of blood fall from her neck into his hair. His eyes meet hers and he stops moving. 

“You’re bleeding,” he says hoarsely. 

“It’s just glass,” she replies, oddly calm. “Are you hurt?”

“Other than being squashed by you?” he retorts, starting to struggle again. “No.” 

She rolls off him, so she is between the wall and him. “We have to get out of here,” she says, scanning the room, the open door, the window above them. She turns to Jaime, is relieved to see he has not tried to rise from the floor. “We stick to the walls, stay low. You go first.”

He starts to shake his head. Brienne grabs his jaw, gives him a shake. “You. Go. First. I’ll be right behind you.” 

“I should…”

“What? Protect me because I’m a woman? You are the general public.”

Jaime stares at her as though she has lost her wits, quite a feat given that he is flat on his back and she is still gripping his jaw hard enough to bruise. 

“I mean, I am sworn to protect you. Now stop arguing with me and go, Lannister!”

“You always call me by my last name when you’re being bossy,” he mutters as he rolls from his supine position into a low crouch and starts to crawl along the wall on his elbows and knees. Brienne resists the urge to slap him on the rump as he passes, swallows the hysterical giggle that rises in her throat at the thought of what his reaction would be. 

_This is shock_ , a part of her thinks, the not-giggling part, as she checks to see Jon and Sam are already out of the apartment and covering the corridor and stairwell with their guns. She assumes the same position as Jaime and crawls after him, her sleeves and trousers protecting her from the glass strewn thickly across the floor. 

By the time they reach the lobby, an orderly pandemonium of police cars and ambulances reigns in the street. Police are sent up to the floor opposite Jaime’s window in the other building, find no trace of the shooter. Brienne watches as Jaime is checked for injuries and loaded into a police car with Jon and Sam, while she sits in the back of an ambulance, having the blood sponged off her and the cuts on her neck and shoulders stitched. 

The medics want to take her to hospital, but she refuses, despite the telltale tremor in her hands, the chills running up and down her limbs. She throws her ruined jacket and shirt in the trash, pulls an old sweatshirt from her trunk, dons that over her bloodstained undershirt, the stitches tugging and protesting her every movement. 

Her hands still shake as she drives to the hotel where the police force hides people who need hiding. _This is shock_ , she thinks clearly as she shows her badge to the young man working the front desk, walks down the corridor to where Jon and Sam guard a room door, the same as all other room doors. 

“Brienne,” Jon frowns up at her. “You should be in hospital.”

“So the medics told me. I need to speak to him.”

“That’s not proper procedure. Somebody else will be along to debrief Lannister in the morning. You should…”

“Jon,” Sam cuts in softly. “Let her go in.” 

Jon looks like he will argue. He looks at Sam, then at Brienne, then back at Sam. His mouth twisting with disapproval, he pulls out a keycard and opens the door for Brienne. She gives him a quick peck on the cheek, smiles at Sam before she enters. _I am in shock._

The shower is running, the bathroom door closed, Jaime’s clothes discarded on the floor. Brienne takes off her shoes, turns down the covers with shaking hands, registering idly that the bed is nowhere near as big as the one in Jaime’s apartment, sits with her back against the headboard, two pillows cushioning her mangled shoulders, her legs stretched out in front of her. Her stitches mutter and itch. She closes her eyes and breathes. 

She does not open her eyes when the shower stops running, nor when she hears Jaime moving around in the bathroom, nor when she hears the bathroom door open. Only when he stops dead upon seeing her does she look at him. 

He stands in the open bathroom door, naked and golden with not a scratch on him, so beautiful Brienne suddenly feels incredibly tired. She wants to curl up and cry and sleep and never get up again. Every inch of her skin feels like it is burning and itching as she watches Jaime, and he watches her, and finally walks up to the bed and cups her cheek in his hand. 

Brienne rubs her cheek against his moist palm, lips the ball of his thumb, bites it to see what that would be like. Jaime’s breath catches, he bends down and kisses her temple, the bridge of her nose, and she notices that he is half hard. He is getting hard just from seeing her sitting on this bed which isn’t his, just from touching her ugly, tired, worn-out face. He is standing and she is sitting, and she is so tired, and she could so easily just slide down the pillows and lean over and take him in her mouth. No man has yet complained about her ability to pleasure him, though most had something uncomplimentary to say about her looks or her size in the light of morning. 

Jaime doesn’t give her a chance to test that theory, because he tips her head up and kisses her, as he did yesterday on his couch yet completely differently, with teeth and tongue and naked want. He pulls off her sweatshirt impatiently, hisses when he sees the bloodstains on her undershirt, the bandages wrapping her shoulders. He cradles her head in his hand, makes her bow so he can kiss the back of her neck, press his lips against the strip of fire under the bandage. 

Brienne’s hands seem not to have gotten the message that she is tired and in shock. They run up Jaime’s thighs, stroke his buttocks, the place where the spine dips into a shallow runnel at the small of his back, his incredibly soft skin. One of her hands grips his hip while the other wraps around his cock, eliciting another hiss from him. She has to stop what she is doing to take off her trousers, but Jaime pulls off her smallclothes, then he is on the bed with her, looming over her, hard and dripping, his face so fierce and tender she can barely stand to look at him. _Apparently I’m here to protect and serve,_ and _take care of bodily needs_ , she thinks in a part of her brain that is observing all this with idle detachment, untouched by Jaime’s hand on her skin, his cock brushing the inside of her thigh. 

He slides his hand between her thighs, but she pushes it away. “Later,” she mutters. “I’ve been ready since last night.” He feels her anyway, to make sure, and finds that she tells it true. She folds her legs around him and he pushes into her, pushes and strokes, groaning, his elbows planted on either side of her. If she turns her head one way she can kiss his hand, the other way and she can kiss his stump, her shoulders burning, and it takes very little time and it is still better than any other time for Brienne because she wanted it more. 

When she can think again, she feels warm and no longer in shock, no longer as though she were feeling everything, seeing and hearing and smelling everything through a layer of cotton wool, and it is still night. Jaime is propped up on his elbows beside her, watching the rise and fall of her stomach and her small breasts, the length of her legs, splayed in the aftermath of sex. He smiles at her, somehow managing to look both smug and hesitant, questioning, and she caresses his face, his nose, his neck with her long fingers, swallows at the sight of finger pad-shaped bruises on his jaw, and whispers to him what she would like. 

“You said you take direction well, given the right incentive,” she says, and he grins, slides down her body until he is comfortably settled and can take his time tasting her and teasing her and impelling her ever closer with his tongue and fingers, then holding her at bay just a little longer. She grabs fistfuls of sheets, bites her lip savagely. When she sees Jaime watching her, his mouth busy and his eyes avid for her, suddenly she doesn’t care what she looks like or if Jon and Sam can hear her. She grips his hair, and pushes against his mouth and nose and chin with abandon. 

After, he hooks his maimed arm under her leg and flips her onto her side, so her bandaged shoulders do not press against the mattress, folds himself to her hips and lower back, his pelvis rocking into her. She opens up to him, lets him ride her, his stump pressed against her stomach. Sweat soaks her bandages, her cuts sting. She slides her fingers between her thighs, clenches around him. 

“ _Fuck_ , Brienne,” Jaime growls into her ear.

 _Yes, we are_ , she replies silently, clenches harder, hair sticking to her temples, the back of her neck. 

He rears up behind her like a wild beast, clings to her like a limpet, fucks her like both their lives depend on it. Her name on his lips is a triumphant battle cry when he comes. Brienne can only pant and whimper, and scream his name in her head, too far gone, too wrung out with anxiety and exhaustion and pleasure to speak. 

She feels tender between her legs and across her shoulders when she wakes to find early-morning sunlight spilling over the sheets, Jaime’s breath hot and damp on her bandaged shoulder, his leg bristly over hers. They will move him to a proper safe house after last night, she knows. He will have to get a new identity after the trial, be moved somewhere truly safe. She will no longer be the one guarding him. 

He doesn’t wake when she gets up, leaving a few tiny shards of glass from her hair on the pillow. He doesn’t wake when she quickly washes herself in the sink, ignoring the urge to linger and stroke herself to climax while he lies not five feet away, nor does he wake when she gets dressed and leaves. Jon looks positively mutinous when she passes him in the corridor, but Sam gives her an embarrassed smile. Brienne tells herself she owes them both a huge favor. 

She feels Jaime between her legs, on her tingling breasts, in her mouth all the way home, and while giving her statement about the incident in his apartment later that day, and while Captain Mormont tells her Lannister is being moved to a safe house, his protests overruled by the need to ensure his absolute safety until the end of the trial. Mormont also tells her she is on desk duty until her injuries heal, mentions nothing about her visit to the hotel. Brienne tells herself she owes Sam and Jon cupcakes and ice cream and a bottle of booze as well as a huge favor. Her fingers twitch like she is trying to kick a nicotine habit every time she thinks of Jaime, which is ten thousand times that day and every day after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course I’m not going to leave them like that, gentle reader! Two more chapters are coming.


	5. Sticky Fingers

Brienne sits in the break room at the precinct, eating a Pop-Tart fresh from the toaster and watching news footage on the closing statements in the Lannister-Baelish trial. District Attorney Sparrow has a voice like thunder in a jar, and his rhetoric on crime and punishment is just as subtle and understated. Cersei Lannister’s lawyer Varys wrings his soft, white hands while he talks to journalists about proven innocence and reasonable doubt, which sounds to Brienne much like a prostitute talking about virginity and STDs in the same breath. 

There is no way either Cersei or Petyr Baelish will walk on the embezzlement, fraud and organized crime charges, not after Jaime’s testimony. The issue of Tywin Lannister’s death is a different matter, as are the attempts on Jaime’s life. Conclusive evidence is lacking to make those charges stick, though Brienne is convinced the two assassination attempts at least were Cersei’s doing. A car bomb and a sniper are gratuitously gory in case of success. If Baelish was going to try to have Jaime killed, he would go for something both less ostentatious and more shocking, Brienne thinks. A passing stranger in the courthouse corridor jostles Jaime, leaves him gasping on the floor with a Valyrian steel switchblade between his ribs. Something like that. 

Brienne shudders at the thought, wipes crumbs off her fingers and sucks a bit of frosting off her thumb, grateful that Jaime is moved to a different safe house every evening since the night in the hotel. Not even Mormont knows which safe houses are used, and Brienne is glad of it, not only for Jaime’s safety, but because she would be too tempted to pay him another unannounced visit. Which would be dangerous, for Jaime’s life as well as Brienne’s heart. Not to mention Brienne’s career. 

She reaches for the remote when Hunt walks in, sees what she is watching and slides her an oily smile. 

“Hey, Bri, hoping for a glimpse of your boyfriend?”

Brienne tells herself not to respond, it is the only way to deal with Hunt’s barbs. But an insistent voice in the back of her mind hisses that silence and glaring have not helped so far, neither in deterring Hunt and his cronies, nor in saving Brienne from pain and self-recrimination. 

She switches off the TV, turns in her chair to where Hunt is pouring coffee. 

“Hyle?” she says, and he nearly drops the coffee pot in shock at her use of his first name, her sweet tone. 

“Brienne?” he responds, suspicion and keenness warring on his face. He licks his lips nervously.

Brienne smiles. “If you or any of your friends speak to me about anything not case-related ever again, you will be picking your teeth off the floor with broken fingers. And you can tell Internal Affairs I said so, so when one of you inevitably slips up, they’ll have the paperwork ready to bring me up on disciplinary charges. Which will be worth it, to see you on your knees, spitting blood. Which you will, if I ever give you what's coming to you.”

He gapes at her while she gets up and heads back to her desk, the coffee pot in his hand inches away from spilling its scalding contents over his shoes. 

_Jaime would be proud_ , Brienne thinks. Then she remembers she should also have told Hunt not to call her Bri, shrugs. Win some, lose some. 

She is barely back at her desk and getting ready to plow through the backlog of paperwork on the Ramsay Snow case when Podrick leans over from the desk he shares with Bronn. 

“The Old Bear wants to see you,” he whispers. 

“Why are you whispering?” Brienne returns in an exaggerated stage whisper. 

“‘Cause Mormont has got a face like thunder, and Pod’s afraid of attracting lightning,” Bronn chimes in obnoxiously loudly, not looking up from cleaning his fingernails with a straightened paperclip. 

Brienne glances at Mormont’s office, sees him through the glass partition overlooking the squad room. He is arguing with someone over the phone, his face wine-red.

“Any clues as to why he’s angry?” she asks casually while her stomach knots up. 

Bronn flicks a bit of black off the paperclip, inspects his hand critically. “Probably on account of how he found out you fucked Jaime Lannister before someone shot up his place.” 

Brienne drops her pencil with a clatter, knocks over her pencil jar when she tries to retrieve it. The knot in her stomach resolves itself into a hot, pulsing fist, opening and closing rhythmically, sickeningly. Only when she hears Bronn snicker and looks over to see Pod blush bright crimson, the color of Jaime’s curtains, does she realize just what Bronn said, latches onto his exact words like a drowning woman. 

“I never did,” Brienne says as calmly as she can. 

“You never fucked him or you never fucked him before someone shot up his place?” Bronn replies, quick as a whip, and as kind. When Brienne blushes a warm, deep pink, he turns to his partner and holds out his hand with its clean fingernails, palm up. “You owe me five stags,” he says smugly. 

“Do not,” Pod replies. “She hasn’t answered your question yet.”

“Tarth!” Mormont booms across the squad room like a fog horn. “Get in here!”

“Irrelevant. The bet was on whether they’d get it on, not when or where.” Bronn points at Brienne’s blushing face. “There’s my proof. Pay up.”

“‘Irrelevant’ is an awfully big word for someone who passes the time by laying bets on their colleagues’ sex lives,” Brienne mutters darkly as she rises to obey the Captain’s summons. 

Pod has the good grace to look abashed. 

“Bets aren’t the only thing getting laid around here,” Bronn grins up at her, unrepentant as ever. “You can lay one on _my_ sex life any time you like.”

“No!” Pod exclaims. 

“No, thank you,” Brienne says, overlapping, and escapes into the Old Bear’s office. From the frying pan and into the fire. 

“Close the door,” Mormont growls at her, points at the chair across from him. Brienne sits and tries to keep perfectly still. If she doesn’t make a move, maybe he’ll forget whatever it is he wants to shout at her about ( _Jaime. Oh Jaime_ ) and send her on her way. 

“Can you shed any light on why Jaime Lannister has chosen Tarth as his place of residence once he enters the witness protection program?” Mormont asks without preamble. “Think very carefully before you answer.” 

It takes Brienne a moment to process this. Police officers do not usually deal with witnesses once they are given new identities and relocated. If Mormont has been brought in on this, there is no point in her lying. She does not much care who else may have talked: Jon (who hasn’t spoken to her since the morning at the hotel), Sam (who has only waved at her nervously and from a distance since that morning), the desk clerk, some hotel chambermaid, Bronn, the possibilities are legion. 

This is Jaime telling her he still wants her. But she still wants to keep her job.

“I was born in King’s Landing, sir,” she says, finally and truthfully, and evasively. “My family once owned Tarth Island, true, but I have only ever been there to visit, and not recently.” She shrugs. “Maybe Lannister likes a warm climate.” 

Mormont gives her a quelling look. “Did something happen between you two?”

“How do you mean, sir?”

His mallet-like fist bangs on the desk, making all of his office supplies as well as Brienne jump. “Don’t get saucy with me, Tarth! Did you have sex with Jaime Lannister while you were on his protective detail, yes or no?”

“Yes. Sir.”

The anger seems to escape Mormont like air from a punctured balloon. “Oh gentle Mother and all her wacky nephews,” he sighs. “I would’ve expected something like that from Hunt or Bronn or, hells, even the Tyrell girl. Not you.”

 _Should I apologize?_ Brienne wonders. _I don’t want to apologize. I’m not sorry, except that I disappointed the Old Bear. And I kept Jaime_ alive. _But…_

“I’m in love with him, sir,” she says because it is true, even if she never dared say it before, not even in her head. It is still easier to say than _I love him. Fool that I am._

Mormont eyes her with the weight of experience and something like compassion on his broad shoulders. “Internal Affairs and D.A. Sparrow have called their banners. I can sort them out, but I’ll have to suspend you without pay until it’s all cleared up.”

Brienne nods, unclips her gun holster from her belt, lays her badge on the desk. Mormont doesn’t seem to have anything else to say to her, so she gets up to leave. 

“Sir?” Brienne says, feeling bold, her hand on the door handle. “Thank you for telling me where he is.”

“I can revoke your suspension and have you working triple shifts like that,” Mormont snaps his fingers loudly. “Learn when to beat a strategic retreat, Tarth.”

Brienne doesn’t quite smile as she leaves his office. She doesn’t quite smile because this is her heart and her career and Jaime’s whole life on the line, and though the burden is heavy she feels light carrying it, and so she almost does smile. 

Back at her desk, Pod looks at her curiously while Bronn makes a shiny stag spin and dance over his knuckles. 

Watching him, Brienne remembers Jaime’s fingers on her cheek the night he kissed her and she pulled away from him, his fingers holding the Blue Lagoon, making her shudder and moan in a hotel bed. Her own fingers want to twitch and dance as she squeezes her hands into fists. 

“Did he suspend you?” Pod asks. 

“No,” Brienne says slowly. “No, he gave me some unpaid vacation time. Which means you two inherit the paperwork from the Snow case. Enjoy.” She gestures at the pile of paper on her desk, grabs her jacket and exits, pursued by Bronn’s chuckle and Pod’s cries of outrage as by a bear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shakespearean references that also work for the ASOIAF canon FTW! Mormont’s imprecation is, of course, a nod to the late, lamented _Firefly_. One more to go, the big finale!


	6. Open Hearts

The maesters from Citadel University are saying Westeros is in for a Long Summer of plenty, but you cannot tell as much in King’s Landing, where the air is always polluted and fetid, the Blackwater Rush always polluted and cold, and only true Winter clears the air even as it freezes the lungs. 

You _can_ , however, tell Summer has already begun on Tarth, where the waters always sparkle sapphire blue, but the breeze off the Narrow Sea is refreshing rather than bracing, and armies of crickets sing challenge to each other across the sun-blasted landscape. It is hot enough for Brienne to give in and wear a simple cotton smock instead of trousers. Her freckles come out in force as soon as she arrives. 

Her first port of call is the local police station. The family name Tarth still draws instant respect on the island, and the police chief was acquainted with Brienne’s late father. He knows right away whom she means when she describes a one-handed man newly settled on the island. 

She walks down to the end of the beach among the first crowds of tourists. The Long Summer means a long tourist season, the local economy will boom. It makes sense for Jaime to buy a boat rental shop, especially if he gets a couple of knowledgeable locals to actually run it for him. Brienne cannot help shaking her head at the proprietor’s name on the freshly painted sign above the door. 

“Welcome to Tarth Island, how can I help you?” says the perky girl behind the counter when Brienne walks in. Her nametag says ‘Pia.’

“I would like to speak to the proprietor.”

“Mr. Lyon is out back, with the boats. I can fetch him if you like.” The girl seems very keen on the idea of fetching her boss, despite the presence of a couple with small children looking over the price board. 

Brienne forestalls Pia with a gesture. “I’ll find him. You have customers.” 

She walks around the shop to the small marina in the back, several boats painted white, yellow and red bobbing in the clear blue water. He has his back to her as he tinkers with a boat engine. 

Brienne tells her heart and hands to be still, clears her throat, feeling not the least bit in shock. “Mr. Lyon?”

He stops rummaging in the greasy engine at the sound of her voice. He straightens, turns, his appearance not really altered by the short hair, the baseball hat and the sunglasses. Even dressed in a faded shirt and short pants, he looks sleek and ready for anything. Mr. _GQ_ as a beach bum. His smile is of that illegal variety which first snagged Brienne’s attention like a rusty nail, like a strong hand. Brienne’s heart and hands relax at the sight of it. 

She grins toothily, giddy with relief at his joy in seeing her. “You look like the guy who tried to blow up the Red Keep with that cap and sunglasses.” 

“And you look like a quail egg. Did your freckles breed and multiply out here in their natural habitat, away from the city?” 

“Really, Jaime? Jaime _Lyon_? Is that the best you could come up with when they let you choose your new name?”

He shrugs, unapologetic. “My father always likened Lannisters to lions. And I figured I’d better keep the first name. It’s short and easy to remember, in case you ever get confused as to what you should call me while in the throes of ecstasy.”

A laugh escapes Brienne, wings away between blue sea and blue sky as Jaime climbs out of the boat and approaches her. “You are so arrogant. This poor island will sink beneath the weight of your arrogance.” 

“Brienne, shut up already.” Then he is embracing her, his hands (the fleshly and the prosthetic) leaving greasy prints on the back of her smock, his mouth on her collarbone wet as the sea and hotter than the Summer day. His sunglasses fall off when she knocks his cap off, runs her fingers through his short hair, brings his mouth up to hers. They kiss long and sloppily and happily, while the sun beats down on them. 

Finally surfacing for air, Jaime finishes wiping his hands clean on the back of Brienne’s smock, takes her right hand with his good one. “Come on, I’ll show you my castle.” 

“Don’t you want to tell that Pia where you’re going? It’s the middle of the day during the tourist season.” 

“Nah. The poor girl will be devastated when she discovers I’m off the market. Let her tend her fantasies a little while longer.” He winks, smiles wickedly. 

“Jaime Lann… Lyon, you are a terrible man. People should lock up their daughters when you’re around, lest they get their hearts broken with none of the fringe benefits of heartbreak.” 

“What about you?” he asks, aiming for casual and missing by a nautical mile. “Isn’t the guy who keeps texting you going to miss you?”

Brienne stops in her tracks, forcing him to stop, too, since they are holding hands. “The guy who keeps texting me is my former _police_ partner Pod. He and his current partner Bronn had a bet on whether we’d sleep together back in King’s Landing.” She pauses, enjoying the mingled looks of relief, sheepishness and stubborn pride on Jaime’s face. “In case you’re wondering, Bronn won.” 

“Smart man, this Bronn.” 

“I don’t want to talk about Bronn, Jaime.” 

He nods, pulls Brienne after him. His castle turns out to be little more than a well-tended shack a few doors down from the rental shop. Jaime takes off his prosthetic, washes it and his good hand in the kitchen while Brienne walks around his living space, feels his gaze like the sun on her back, pauses at the door to the bedroom. The bed is smaller but still spacious, covered in ( _of course_ ) a crimson bedspread. 

She feels Jaime come up behind her, the sun embracing her in its rays, consuming her. 

“Took you long enough to get here,” he murmurs in Brienne’s ear, sending that traitorous shiver down her spine and legs. “I was beginning to think I’d have to send you a picture postcard to nudge you in the right direction. One with ‘Tarth’ written on it in big yellow letters. Or do like they did in days of yore, send you a raven trained to caw _Tarth, Tarth, not you, the island, you stupid, bloody…_ ”

“Jaime?” Her voice sounds smaller, more tremulous than normal. She almost hates him for making her feel this way. 

“Yes, Brienne?”

“I want you.”

She feels him grin against her neck, his hand slips around her to unbutton her smock. Slides inside and cups her, rubs her where she is already pebbling in anticipation of his touch. He kisses the thin red scar left by broken glass on the back of her neck, licks it. His teeth mark the long column of Brienne’s neck while she leans back into him, her thighs rubbing, her knees gone all watery. 

“Just so we’re clear,” he murmurs into her skin, pressing his wanting loins against her backside, his hand wavering between her breast and the rest of her buttons, “if you sneak out again before I wake up, I’ll wring your thick neck.” 

“If I ever sneak out on you again, you are welcome to drown me in the Narrow Sea.”

“Too right.” 

She turns to his mouth, tongues starting what bodies desire. He backs her towards the bed, unbuttons her smock completely on the way. Brienne shrugs out of it, kicks away her sandals, her damp smallclothes, basks in the feel of his hungry gaze on her, with all her imperfections, tall, broad, ugly, desirable, fuckable. 

When Jaime reaches for her, she steps sideways, just out of his grasp. Grins at his frown, places her hands on his shoulders, turns him all the way around, and pushes him back onto the bed. Climbs up after him, straddles him. Though she was ready for him when she stepped off the boat from the mainland, when she saw him, when he kissed her at the marina, she savors grinding into him, letting him look and feel. 

“Hells, Brienne,” he groans, hand reaching for her. 

She catches it, strokes her breasts with it. Then takes his maimed arm, kisses the stump, licks it, takes her time nibbling and lipping the tender, scarred skin there, the neat surgical scars not quite concealing the savagery that was done. 

Jaime’s words of teasing encouragement are soon replaced by a whole other language, of grunts and sighs and moans. His hand roams from her neck to her thigh to her stomach to her moistness, and she abandons his stump in favor of unbuttoning his shirt. Jaime struggles out of the shirt, muttering about the need to even wear clothes, while Brienne smiles and undoes the buttons on his short pants, lifts off him so he can kick it all off, pants, smallclothes, shoes, nearly dislodging her in the process. 

She giggles and knee-walks backward down his legs, takes him in her hand, in her mouth. His pulse on her tongue, his life in her hand. He is bunching the sheets in his hand, tugging hard enough to tear, and Brienne imagines his fingers in her hair, remembers doing some damage to the sheets herself when he was licking her in the hotel room. Relishes the taste of him, the way he arches off the bed, her other hand sliding slickly over the sweat on his stomach, his ribs. The joyous feeling of control and the desire for loss of control locked in battle inside her breast, her belly, her cunt. 

Brienne loved the way he took her in the hotel, fucked her like she was already his ( _she was_ ), but she wants to see how much direction he can really take. 

She rises, waits until his eyes focus on her before she slowly licks her lips. Jaime exhales through his nose, a bull in heat, and Brienne keeps stroking him, her hand slow and sure on him. Straddles him again, and rolls her hips as she takes him in, slowly, she can see he would plead if he were not too proud. _I could make him beg_ , she realizes, and the blinding insight goes straight to the core of her, makes her clench around him so they both moan. 

She leans in, kisses him once, twice, tongues tangling and parting, a tango, then she sits back, lets his eyes and hand and stump roam over every part of her they can reach. Leans back farther, making him grunt and groan as he thrusts into her. Boldness sweeping through her like wildfire, the fresh scars on her neck and shoulders pulsing in time with the movement of their hips, she cups her small breasts in her large hands, caresses them while he watches, offers them to him. 

“Suck.” An invitation, a question, a plea. 

Eyes narrowed, breath ragged, he pushes himself up on his elbows, sits up, nearly overbalancing her from her perch astride his lap, catches her around the waist, sucks and licks and rubs his face on her while she envelops him in her arms and lets him set the pace, her sensitive skin crying out, singing. 

_I love you_ , she gasps silently. She will not say it while he is inside her. _I love you._

“Jaime,” she gasps out loud. “Jaime.” His hair under her chin, in her mouth, she remembers him struggling under her while broken glass cascaded over them, revels in the feel of his muscles working against her skin, with her, under her hands, between her legs, as he rocks her, rubs her, sucks her into gasping, blinding oblivion. He comes with her, his breath an incoherent growl around her nipple, and she feels immortal, invincible. 

Lying next to Jaime afterward, their limbs tangled up like brambles, Brienne spares a thought for the gods, if they exist, hopes they will not mind her presumption. She has never been very ambitious, but she wants this. Wants him. For always, for all her days. Even with their history, her job, his sister’s imprisonment. 

“I love you,” she whispers, half hoping he won’t hear her. His arm tightens around her shoulders, and she can tell he is grinning. 

“I know you do,” he says, equable, smug, sated. 

“Arrogant,” she murmurs. “Island-sinkingly arrogant.”

“Wanton,” he fires back lazily. “Bossy. Greedy for my cock. Slow to figure out my whereabouts. _Mine._ ” 

It’s a game, but Brienne is riled, her blood is up. It’s not a game, and she is playing in dead earnest. “I don’t know if I want to move to this island, Jaime.” 

“Stubborn. Contrary. Has the right last name to make island chief of police in six months. Could spend her days on the beach and in bed, occasionally arrest a drunken tourist, never think about that hellhole of a capital again.” 

“Maybe I like that hellhole. Maybe you’ll just have to deal with a long-distance relationship for a while.”

The grin in his voice becomes even more pronounced. “ _For a while?_ Bargaining now, Brienne? Maybe I’ll just fuck all those quaint notions out of your head, and you’ll never go back at all.”

“Maybe you’ll try.” 

“Maybe I’ll send naked pictures of myself to your work email, and you’ll be fired for downloading pornography on a police computer.”

“Maybe I’ll drown _you_ in the Narrow Sea.”

“Oh Brienne. I’m going to look forward to having these little chats for the next fifty years of our lives.” 

He pulls her closer, and she rests her head on his shoulder, enjoying the sea breeze on her sweaty skin, the closeness of him, the smell of him, the infuriating, grinning, pulsing presence of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaime’s idea of how to respond to a declaration of love owes everything to Han Solo, the ultimate Jaime-archetype. Brienne’s comment about him looking like somebody who tried to blow up the Red Keep is because NCW wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses in that [pic](http://24.media.tumblr.com/6ed52986fbaafa1da795f872f31ab5bc/tumblr_mtojlc0v4G1s43oaco2_1280.jpg) of the cast in Dubrovnik shooting season 4 put me in mind of the FBI’s forensic [sketch](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Unabomber-sketch.png) of the Unabomber… My brain is sometimes very dark and full of scary, scary shadows. :-P


End file.
